I BLINKED AND I MISSED IT

19 FEBRUARY, FRIDAY, AT SCHOOL

Okay, so my day hadn't started off in the best way, but my body pains from last night training had completely dissipated - like the morning dew, it was so completely gone by the time I left for school, I could've imagined it.

But the fact was I didn't always have Mate's healing ability, so I knew what a tough training would have inflicted if I didn't sleep it off - even on my Alpha Wolf powered body. So it was weird that my body wasn't suffering even a little bit. I could've sworn last night's training was something that happened last week.

And after freshly toasted waffles and cold pressed orange juice, it's hard for me not to be happy. Ki had even put chocolate chips in the waffle batter.

If I had to be picky about it, the only less than perfect thing about my life right now was that I was feeling awfully sleepy.

Harvey had been droning on and on about my weekend schedule and related updates, but for the life of me, I just couldn't focus. I'm sure he was saying something important, so I tried my best to listen to him list the upcoming events and key updates, "Blah blah blah blah blah..."

It was very hard to understand the words that were coming out of his mouth because he kept pronouncing everything in blahs. So even though I was trying my very best to listen properly, just as he was giving me the breakdown of the "Blah blah blah", I fell asleep.

"Alpha? Alpha? We've reached school."

I was awoken by my good beta's gravelly voice... Actually, it was mostly the word "school".

"Wha-" I fell asleep? No way!

(See I told you. I could sleep through anything.)

I pulled away from the side window, wiped off the drool with the back of my sleeve, then blinked at the now brightly lit day around me.

Harvey was looking at me, a slight frown creased on his forehead, "Are you alright, Alpha?"

I was still blinking owishly around. From my window, I could see... The back of someone's pants. Neil's? I couldn't tell - this could be a fun game. Guess who's behind?

But from the front, I could see we've properly reached school, past the paparazzi camp outside, and were now parked neatly in front of the porch at the student foyer.

"But it was probably for the better that you were sleeping just now... I guess last night was pretty rough." Harvey added as an afterthought, "I'm still sore."

Was that my fault? Opps, "I won't be so rough next time."

"Ah, no Alpha." Harvey quickly said, "That's not what I meant-"

Then he stopped and shrugged it off with a chuckle, "That didn't come out right. Apologies."

Eh?

But Harvey had already moved to open his side of the door, "Please wait a moment. I'll get the door."

And he was out of the car.

I sat there still a little dazed from the snooze I had. I really must have been tired, the sleep had only felt like a blink. I would've sworn I had dream traveled and suddenly woke up in school. Hahaha. Now that would be a stress dream.

The butt moved away from my window. (It was Neil's.) And I realized why it was there. Neil was physically blocking the cameras outside. There were so many students out with their phones today. They nearly toppled over the barriers when Harvey opened my door for me to get out. The warriors on duty rushed forward to try to keep the barriers up, but it was like trying to keep a dam from breaking.

I hesistated a nanosecond and then got out of the car and pulled on my backpack. Fluffy and EJ were by my side on cue.

Fluffy put his arm around me to push me by my backpack, "Keep moving pretty Alpha. Before they break the barrier."

EJ was on my other side, "Today was crazy!"

It was? What happened?

"It was like even worse than the other day!" EJ made a little whine, "I nearly crashed my bike on our own car!"

"That's because you're clumsy on a bike." Fluffy said, his smile never faltering, "Poor Jax."

Jax? Right! What happened to Jax?

I can't believe I slept through whatever just happened. Shouldn't my Alpha level instinct wake me? What happened to Jax?

For some reason, Fluffy sensed my distress, "Stay calm Alpha. We're almost at class."

Even along the hallways, one or two of the kids who usually minded their own business, stopped to take a photo or video of our passing.

"What's going on?" I asked when it happened for the third time along the lockers.

"Would you believe if I said Alpha was pretty and cute and everyone wanted her photo?" Fluffy smiled.

I narrowed my eyes at him. Even a kid wouldn't buy that kind of sorry excuse!

"Tell me exactly what's happening?" I demanded.

Fluffy smiled... And yes, he's always smiling, but he was really enjoying himself right now, "Let's get to class first, Alpha."

Grrr... fine! Keep me in suspense! But this better be good, or else!

We stepped into the empty classroom. EJ flipped on the lights. I dumped my things on my desk and scowled at Fluffy, "Tell me what you know, Fluffy."

"It's all due to a badly timed misunderstanding." Fluffly assured me, "Nothing serious."

Grrr... If Fluffy didn't answer properly, I was going to... I'm not sure what I would do, but luckily, Fluffy did answer, so I was saved from figuring out how to punish him. (It's hard if it's Fluffy, you know? If it were Ben or Jonah, I would have just punched them, but the first and last time I punched out at an ex-fightdog (I.e. Ki), I felt like I was being abusive. Weird, I know... since they were strong fightdogs and all, but it's complicated. I don't know how to explain it.)

Anyway, Fluffy told me, "Tomorrow is Scary Alpha's Inauguration."

Which at first, I thought was completely unhelpful information, "The whole world knows that."

"Yes." Fluffy's pretty smile widened, "And the whole world is watching the Silver Mountain Pack introduce their next Alpha."

I knew that too. I even understood why (Level Up in political understanding for me!) Okay, it wasn't anything I figured out by myself, more like I've heard my betas, my dad and Beta Lucas etc discuss it. It's been a trending topic.

The Silver Mountain Pack was the premier pack in the Gold Packlands. Their intel gathering abilities and subsequent wealth had made them both friends and foes all around. So everyone was watching the pack's next alpha step up. But no matter if you were friend or foe, you would be attending this event, or watching the live-televised ceremony for a chance to further trade agreements, or a weakness that might be exploited. Henry himself had been in the spotlight lately - first for hiring Green Packland warriors to eradicate the rogues in his packlands, and then for the death threats ensuing due to his stand against rogues, and along with this, of course there's also Page Six coverage on his vday date with "long time flame" Charbear and a host of bizarre topics like what fruit was banned in the Alpha's mansion, or which event planner was chosen to organize his Inauguration Ceremony.

Henry actually did a lot of cool stuff too. He visited an orphanage with a large personal donation, opened a new wing at the local hospital... and stuff like that. He had to do something like that everyday after school so that they could play it on the news - even as a passing mention. I think the Silver Mountain Pack wanted to portray the new Alpha as a level-headed, socially aware, and entrepreneurial young wolf who would be a great Alpha in his time, but it was hard with all the stuff about the rogue hunt and girlfriends being thrown into the mix.

Anyway, it was hard for me to picture him either way, since Henry was just Henry.

But it seemed like my media life wasn't terribly different from Henry's/

"There's a photo that leaked out on social media of pretty alpha and scary alpha in a compromising position." Fluffy explained, "Yesterday, the LyNCh offered a thousand dollars to anyone who could provide evidence of Alpha Henry's secret love affair with the Alpha Princess."

I actually considered it for a moment. You know, I've been thinking that I might as well earn some extra pocket money through this...

"Hn... Only a thousand dollars?" I asked. That's not quite worth my trouble... Wait, what was I thinking?

"Stop." I said, "What compromising photo?"

EJ flicked on his screen to show his social media page. EJ was extremely well connected, but his feed featured one particular picture more than all the others - the photo of Henry and me, the one we used for the Horneo and Bulliet poster. But this was just the photo, in full color so that my blue hair was unmistakable.

The caption to the photo was "Shocking reveal: Alpha Henry's true love."

This shocking reveal was "forwarded many times" since it first surfaced sometime yesterday after school. Fluffy showed me that the newspapers had ran it this morning. I read the newspaper for a summary of what the online community had been saying, and then I took a deep breath and returned Fluffy's phone to him.

"Pretty Alpha?" Fluffly tilted his head to one side to regard me.

"I'm fine." I waved him off, "You guys better change for school. I'm just going back to my desk to sleep."

And that was exactly what I had planned to do, except that I couldn't sleep again. Unlike last night though, I wasn't sure why I couldn't sleep. Last night, I knew, I was worrying about the ex-fightdogs and stuff, but as I rested my cheek on my folded arms against the desk, I couldn't quite figure out what troubled me.

I was kind of cheesed that I had been dragged into Henry's list of girlfriends, yes. But I was quite sure Henry wouldn't misunderstand our relationship just because of this article, or any other article/post/comment they had written. It was more like I didn't like the idea that anyone could think we were even a good match. I'd rather date a credit card. That way, while it might still pay for the date and expect a full repayment in the future, it wouldn't condescend me. Hahaha. Okay, fine, Henry wasn't that bad. But he was Henry. And I was quite sure the feeling was mutual.

Maybe I was worried about the safety of my warriors? Poor Jax. I hope he was okay.

But we were warrior wolves - we shouldn't be afraid of paparazzi, right?

Or maybe I just didn't like having my school mates turned into paparazzi around me. Yeah, that was annoying, but I was getting used to it. As long as my real friends still treated me normal, I could ignore the others.

And then I realized what was really bugging me. My real friends... how did that photo get out there? Or rather, WHO leaked that photo?

I tried to remember, Marcus took the photo - but he wouldn't dare leak it to the media. He was a guy, yes, but he wasn't completely dumb. Henry would have killed him. But if not Marcus, who else had that picture? Whoever made that poster and shared it with the school?

Its not even the poster that got leaked to the press - even though the whole school probably seen it. It was the original photo in full color.

WHO? Did that person sell the photo? Did that person betray me, like on purpose? Was that person close to me? How close?

{Princess? Are you alright?}

Why was everyone asking me that today? Oh wait, {Mate!}

Lucky! Mate was mindlinking me! Yay! (This was Boo - I just hoped she didn't send that right through the mating bond.)

{Cute.} And then Mate got down to task, {Did you reach school alright?}

{Of course I did!} Even though I slept through the ride here. And then I remembered Jax, {I'm not sure about Jax though.}

{What did that idiot do now?} Mate asked.

Eh? No, more like... actually, I had no idea, {I don't think it was his fault...}

I turned to Fluffy who had changed out of his warrior gear and was now reading a book at his desk, "Fluffy, what happened to Jax?"

Fluffy looked up from his book, his usual smile on, "He overslept this morning, so he missed all the action."

EJ who had just entered the classroom overheard and bounced over, "Hahaha, he was calling himself MVP after shooting down the drone the other day too."

"He plays too much computer games." Fluffy shrugged it off.

EJ turned to me, "You saw it, right Alpha? We took down the enemy like pros."

"We are pros, EJ." Fluffy reminded him.

Wait, what enemy? No... how could I have slept through that?

{Princess, what did Jax do?} Mate sounded impatient on the other end of the link.

{Ah... nothing.} I answered, I guess it was the truth...since he didn't even make it out of bed! Geesh, that guy! Seriously made me worried for nothing!